Reviewed By Saba Mohtasham and Sasha Sadri

As we approach the second anniversary of the Islamic Republic of Iran's most intense period of political turmoil since the revolution that brought Khomeini to power in 1979, it is important to look back and reflect. The protests in 2009 were triggered by the official results of the presidential election, but quickly evolved into a massive manifestation of political dissent. Millions of Iranians poured into the streets of all major cities across the nation, with slogans such as "Ra-ye man koo?" (Where's my vote) and "Ahmadi raft" (Ahmadinejad is gone), thoroughly shaking the pillars on which the Islamic Republic was founded.

The People Reloaded: an anthology about Iran's Green MovementWestern media depicted the Green Movement as a civil rights movement similar to those in the American South, and the Ghandian approach of non-violence, but Iranian history, culture and complex political landscape set this revolution apart from most other grassroots movements we have seen throughout the 20th century.

The People Reloaded: The Green Movement and the Struggle for Iran's Future presents a compilation of short essays from more than three dozen writers voicing their diverse perspectives on what the movement that began two summers ago means for this tumultuous nation. Edited by Nader Hashemi (pofessor of Middle East and Islamic politics at the University of Denver) and Danny Postel (editor of "The Common Review"), The People Reloaded offers a constantly reconfirmed sense of hope that Iran and its people will reach the light at the end of the tunnel.

The essayists include famous activists, religious leaders, historians and citizens such as Ayatollah Mohsen Kadivar, Nobel Peace Prize recipient Shirin Ebadi and Professor Hamid Dabashi of Columbia University. All offer different viewpoints and provide insightful expertise on some of the socio-economic, religious, political and international implications of the Green Revolution.

anthology contributors: (l-r) Reza Aslan, Shirin Ebadi, Hamid DabashiThe conflict in Iran can be easily misunderstood as merely a struggle between a young generation of an urban secular middle-class and the more traditional rural populations within Iran's society. Surely these tensions exist, as Professor Abbas Amanat of Yale University puts forward that what we are currently witnessing in Iran is a "rise of a new middle class whose demands stand in contrast to the radicalism of the incumbent President." However, one should be cautious to not oversimplify the conflict and assume everyone in that middle class will blindly support Western mingling in Iranian domestic affairs.

Protesters in Tehran in the early days of the Green MovementAward-winning foreign correspondent Stephen Kinzer notes in his article "A Specter is Haunting Iran—The Specter of Mossadeq" that many of these people were holding signs of democratically-elected former Prime Minister Mohammad Mossadeq, which should be understood as "Americans, your interventions have brought us tyranny and death. Stay home, keep your hands off and leave our country to us for a change."

But it is a country that foreigners like Americans do not get to understand completely due to the authorities' efforts to control all forms of communication. In her essay, Nasrin Alavi, author of We Are Iran: The Persian Blogs (2005), describes the iconic images of this movement, such as the video of Neda Agha-Soltan's death, as "momentary glimpses into a closed society that have the power to change perceptions en masse." Several of these images have garnered international attention, and Cornel West advocates that a global interest is crucial to the progression of this movement.

Where's My Vote?West credits the people's fundamental commitment to allowing suffering to speak to be the basis of a successful movement. He says in an interview with Dabashi that "the Green Revolution is the most significant and exemplary movement for justice in the world today because it is in a part of the world where both reform and transformation are necessary, but rooted in a nonviolent movement tied to love and justice," and he encourages those involved to "never in any way be paralyzed by despair."

Human rights activist and lawyer Shirin Ebadi continues this sentiment in her piece about women's role in the movement. She cites the Mourning Mothers, women who have gathered peacefully in Laleh Park in Tehran weekly since June of 2009 remembering their children who were taken from them. Though they are attacked and arrested each time, this does not stop them from showing up every Saturday. Ebadi promises that it will be women who deliver democracy to Iran.

But we should not overlook that which has already been achieved. Author and editor Reza Aslan writes of the people's success in the delegitimization of the Iranian regime, convincing all Iranians that their Islamic republic is neither Islamic nor a republic in its current state.

The People Reloaded tells us time and time again that Iran's struggle is not in vain and that it is in capable hands, and Aslan successfully captures the optimism for Iran's future at the end of his submission: "Whether for good or for bad, the Iran that ultimately rises out of the ashes of last summer's uprising will be unlike the Iran we know today, and for that we should thank the Green Movement."

 Mohtasham and Sadri are students at UCLA, where Mohtasham writes for the Daily Bruin. Both intern at the Levantine Cultural Center.